


You Will Be

by Black_Betty



Category: Cold Mountain (2003), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Civil War, M/M, Romance, Separation, War violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-30
Updated: 2012-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-02 18:40:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Betty/pseuds/Black_Betty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik Lehnsherr, Union soldier, wakes up alone and wounded and can only think "where is Charles?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Will Be

**Author's Note:**

> This is set during the American Civil War, and is a mini fill for this prompt on the kink meme:
> 
> Please, please, please someone write this:
> 
> http://scifantasy.tumblr.com/post/18646609939/civil-war-au-in-which-two-soldiers-serving-in-the
> 
> (The beards alone are making me weak in the knees, let alone the potential for EPIC...)
> 
> I'm aware that this is FAR too short a fill for an amazing prompt, based on a gorgeous song/book/movie, and I'm not ruling out coming back to it, and writing more...but I need to finish City by the Sea first! Or else it shall never be done!!!
> 
> One day I'll write something in canon again. I promise :)

 

 

_And as you walk through death’s dark veil_

_the cannon’s thunder can’t prevail_

_And those who hunt thee down will fail_

_and you will be my ain true love_

 

Pain.   
  
Flickering consciousness, half slit eyes. A swinging lamp, ghoulish shadowing dancing across the roof of a tent, torn, worn over with dirt.   
  
A smell, a suffocation, blood, a festering wound. Sick, permeating infection, cloying smoke and gun power and the stench of death, the hand of the man in black pressing down, closing eyes, drawing life from gaping mouths, those silent screaming open voids of absolute nothingness.   
  
Someone is crying. Someone is muttering vengeance. Someone is screaming for his leg as it is removed from his body. Someone is drowning in his own blood with a choke and wet rattle. Someone is whispering low, voice raw and barely audible above the din, “Charles. Charles.”  
  
It’s him--  
  
(‘Charles.” He rolls over at the sound of his name, rolls over and tucks his face into the stretch of skin where Erik’s throat meets his shoulder, his bearded chin rough, scratching against the already raw surface of his neck and he murmurs something in his sleep and the weight of him is solid and perfect and Erik feels safe--)  
  
Distantly he’s aware of his mouth forming the words, his lips raw and peeling, and he fights for consciousness, but he’s drowning in the pain and the darkness, part of him says, ‘stay. Stay where they can’t hurt you,’ the voice like a serpent in his ear, seductive, tempting.  
  
There is a hand on him, weight like a brand on his arm and he thinks again ‘Charles’ and maybe he says it again, and suddenly the darkness is oppressive and smothering and he wants out, wants that hand to belong to Charles, Charles who held onto him, and pulled him back from the edge time and again--  
  
(Charles, his hands smoothing up the bare skin of Erik’s chest, his eyes bright even in the darkness, his mouth leaving burning kisses over his heart, and Erik thinks he might be falling apart but Charles, Charles has always held him together--)  
  
It’s not Charles when he opens his eyes. It’s a tall man, a boy, really, though he looks old in the low light of the tent, his face lined with exhaustion and sorrow and the responsibility of trying to save the lives of so many who are already condemned.   
  
“Are you in pain?” He asks, and he is, oh dear God, he is, there is a line of fire burning into his side, aching, pulling him in two like his skin is trying to peel itself away, but he doesn’t care, he only wants to know about Charles—  
  
(Charles is standing at the crest of the hill, and Erik is shouting at him to come back, come back, but someone is down the other side, and they can all hear him screaming, the sound of it haunting, heralding painful, lonely death, and Charles will not leave him even though he’s doomed, and then the screaming is swallowed by the sound a roaring thunder, and the world is exploding into fire and horrible light, and Charles is illuminated, Charles is standing on the hill when hells erupts from the ground and rains down fire upon them--)  
  
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” says the child Doctor as he removes his spectacles, glass smudged, wire rims twisted, and rubs his weary eyes. When Erik tries to sit up, tries to stand, thinking only of Charles, (where is Charles?), he pushes him back down, and a cloth flashes into his vision before it is placed over his mouth, stained and smelling sweet and familiar.  
  
Chloroform.   
  
Darkness descends again but before he goes he can see Charles, his eyes dazzling in the sun, his mouth smiling, his hair falling across his forehead. Charles standing on a field of green, Charles in the dirt, Charles bleeding, Charles lit up as the sky catches fire. Charles’ mouth close to his ear, Charles’ voice saying “I love you.”  
  
And then there is nothing.  
  
(Except.   
  
Except that later there is Erik, a heavy coat and a dead man’s shirt wrapped loosely around his body, his ribs wound tight with bandages, his lungs full of smoke and soil and a desperate longing, and a grim determination. Later there is Erik opening the flap of the tent, escaping the moaning symphony of the men lying at death’s door, and stepping out into the night. There is Erik looking across the field of rotting corpses and dotted bonfires, stretched far and wide, endless and overwhelming. Erik and the memory of Charles, his eyes and mouth and hands and words and everything he was, and everything he will be. And Erik closing the tent behind him, and walking out into the night.)

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The excerpt that the beginning is from the song You Will Be My Ain True Love by Alison Krauss and Sting, from the film Cold Mountain and it is beautiful, and it absolutely the ultimate inspiration for this tiny fic :)


End file.
